


A Place to Call her Own, A Person to Call her Home

by futhermore



Series: Dasey [2]
Category: Life with Derek
Genre: F/M, Getting Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:54:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21615940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futhermore/pseuds/futhermore
Summary: She just wanted to feel like she's home.
Relationships: Casey McDonald/Derek Venturi
Series: Dasey [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1557877
Comments: 1
Kudos: 39





	A Place to Call her Own, A Person to Call her Home

Having been married to the goalie for 3 years and dating him for 2 before that, she thought one day she'd finally feel content. They owed a nice apartment on the water in Toronto, close to her law office, the community hockey rink the goalie does his workouts in, and within commuting distance of his job. Men and their priorities, sighing out loud at the thought.

She loved the goalie - love everything about how easy it was to just be. He did laundry and never put his feet on the table and he loved her. But she knew he was tired too. Tired of knowingly being a second choice, and having to see it; at holidays and birthdays and weekends they spent in London because Marti misses them both so they have to come together and of course they're getting breakfast together, just the three of them.

And she'd sat there and watched the way Marti and Derek interacted. He was so good with her, eyes shining so bright and small crinkles by his eyes. Marti wasn’t even little Marti the cat anymore, she was 16 and so grown in every way. 

She'd just tuned back into hear Marti and Derek's giggles to catch Derek's eyes, smiling so brightly at her, her breath caught in her throat. Nervously giggling to cover her reaction she moved to look at Marti to see her just beaming, looking between her two favorite people in the world.

It wouldn’t leave her mind; How life with the goalie felt easy and felt like love. But she could shake the feeling, the out right 'known to be a truth' fact, that life with Derek felt like home. It was something she had fought early on. Of course Derek would feel like home, he was from home, he was everything that home embodied. But then that first semester when the mandatory check-ins became voluntary hangouts, which became weekly, scheduled around, "adventures" they'd called it. The purpose to teach Derek culture and make Casey cooler, 'she was plenty cool', she'd thought then, 'yeah so cool you didn't know they were DATES' she thinks now. They'd all felt like home and fuzzy and love.

When Derek set up their first date, her and her HUSBAND, she reminds herself internally, she'd taken it as a blessing. A way to find out if this was just a proximity and a familiarity and anything else besides real and true and meant being in love with Derek.

The goalie made her feel warm and fuzzy and there were butterflies for all the right moments. And he didn't feel like home, that was the important part. He was foreign and new, a transfer, an athlete and a brain, respectful and always having the right thing to say. And it was easy, they would talk about their feelings and nothing felt unexpected because they had a rhythm, she couldn't ignore that. They could spend days together just the two of them and never get tired of talking, and kissing, and other things that made her blush.

But seeing Derek and Marti and that almost fatherly look, then looking at her with every bit as much love for her as he did for Marti, and that’s all it took to unravel her.

She brings it up over dinner.

"I wish I had never met him." She keeps their eyes locked.

He knows she's inciting a fight. She's been doing it all week. He knows she doesn’t know she's doing it.

"I thought Derek wasn't allowed to prank you now that he's 25? Wasn't it in the treaty you guy's signed 10 year's ago."

"How did you know I was talking about - " He cuts her off, "I think you said it was the only way to determine him being a grown up because of the brain being fully formed and it was the most you could ask from him."

She narrows her eyes, crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair as he takes a nonchalant bite of the dinner she'd made him. Why wont he give her a reason? A reason besides her thoughts that Derek might be a viable option. She didn't even know if Derek was interested and she was testing her marriage.

Casey shook her head to rid her mind of the though, bringing her hands up to wipe across her whole face before settling her chin on her palm, looking at the goalie. Her eyes were dull and he hair was mused like she'd been running her hands through it. The curls he'd watched her delicately sear into her hair that very morning were drooping and frizzy. 

"What is this really about?" He'd asked it kindly but still watched as her eyes flickered as through he could see her data base furiously trying to compute how to say it.

"How do you love me? Knowing.." She trails off. It'll sting to say it, she doesn’t want to hurt him. But she knows she's the villain here.  
"Knowing what, Case? I need you to talk to me so we can work this out," He reaches for her hand as he says it, softly running his thumb across the skin on top on her hand.  
She's still holding eye contact when she tears up, and sees his face break before her eyes clench shut.  
"Why don’t you hate me knowing I could never love you half as much as you love me?"

The goalie lets out a long deep breath before pulling her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her and just letting her cry into his t-shirt he'd changed into after work. A old one from college he'd warn on long nights of deal with her and Derek's constant bickering, when things were easy.

She didn't tell anyone until he moved out after the papers were signed, because like everything else it was easy, for the most part. They'd lived together through the entire process, he'd hold her through the night as she cried and she'd make him breakfast in bed and wash his hair in the shower when he was exhausted from the lack of sleep he'd been getting, trying to figure out what the next steps were.

It took a month, just because of the paperwork and the fact that she had to have a friend draw up the papers, she was too focused on business law to worry about learning how to draft divorce papers; she never thought she'd use them with clients, let alone need them herself. And beg for her friend not to say anything, but she'd felt everything her friend had to say with the sad look and the box of candy that showed up at her newly coined bachelorette pad.

It's only when Nora calls the weekend after that, that Casey breaks down and tells her and sobs as she apologizes for not telling her till now. After Nora assures her, while sad about the news, she is not upset that Casey didn't call with the news. Casey's wondering how to tell her mom why she is now a divorcee when she thinks she hears her mother ask, "Well, have you told Derek?"

Immediately trying to avoid that conversation, because even though their 25 and haven't lived in their house since they were 18 and had never actually done anything like that, she didn't want her mother knowing she'd left her first husband for her step-BROTHER.

Casey stutters as she speaks, "Why, why would I have told Derek if I hadn't told you?" She's pretending to be offended and hoping over the phone it sounds more convincing then the frantic rush of words she'd just heard herself say.

"Well, you two are… close." She can see the face of a mother who is trying not to divulge how much she knows.  
"Mom," Casey whines into the phone, "How long have you known?"  
"You danced. At your wedding. Together. If I hadn't been dancing with the groom I would have thought it was the two of you."

She isn't sure if her mom was getting quieter or if she was getting a head rush.

"Casey! Hello? Can you hear me? Oh god George I think she's having an attack."  
"George is there?" Casey has to grab the bed she's been sitting on even though there's no way she'd be fainting right, everything is fine, she thinks 'oh my god I'm dying'.

She's counted her 10th deep breathe when she hears her phone ringing. Then it stops. And starts up again immediately.  
"Mom, I'm fine. I must of dropped my phone.:  
"Klutzilla strikes again. You didn't crack your screen did you? I just put that new screen protector on for you. I told you not to by the new fancy iPhone princess" His rambling is simultaneously putting her at ease and making her heart beat a billion times a second, kicking a squeak out of her that she muffles with a hand over her mouth.  
"Cat got your tongue?" He makes no noise but she pictures him with his tongue in his cheek and she has to close her eyes and moves her hand to her forehead leaning onto the bed between her legs in front of her.

In the back of her head she's impressed she's still this flexible.

"Casey, are you okay? You still haven't said anything and I'm only like 5 minutes from your apartment. Do you need me to come?"  
She makes a face like she's sucked down 5 warheads like the time Derek had dared her during a study break gone wrong sophomore year. Men and their priorities, she remembers, Derek lives on the other side of town, but bought an office space for his editing studio near her apartment, even though there were good spots on his side of town.  
"Better food on this side of town" He stated when she'd asked.

She must of waited too long to answer thus giving Derek his answer.  
"I'm out front, buzz me in please." He's panting, it barely registers as she scrambles to get to the door.  
He must of caught a lucky break because he's already up the stairs when she opens the door, thinking exposure therapy is probably the only way she's going to get through this. He looks concerned and she frowns because she doesn’t want him to be sad. He takes this as a bad sign and has already pulled her into a hug on the front porch of the apartment before she can catch he breath at just getting a good look at him after turning the landing.

"Are you crying? You know I can't look at you if you're crying right?" Derek tightens his hold around her, "Casey?" He pulls her from where she's buried her head in his chest, still taking deep breaths.  
Smiling, she meets his eyes. His hand rest on her cheek and brushes away a stray tear.  
"I can deal with a couple I guess."

Wrapping a arm around her shoulders, he guides her through the door, toeing off his shoes as he shuts and locks it. Without saying anything, he guides her to the kitchen and starts to boil water. Its only when he's pulling tea bags out of a lower corner cabinet that she finally catches her breath.

"I got divorced."  
"Fuck!" A loud pound resonates as Derek slams his head into the counter. He stands and places his hands on the counter leaning forward, and stays there not looking at her.

They don’t move until the kettle begins to whistle and with tight shoulders, he begins to move through the kitchen pulling a mug from a nearby cabinet.  
She watches him move his way through her kitchen, thinking 'why wont he look at me?'

It's not till the mug is set in front of her that he meets her eye.  
"Well?" She asks, only mildly offended that he hasn’t said anything.  
"Fuck Casey, what do you want me to say? What do you mean you got divorced? Like you've done it already?" He doesn’t let her speak for a moment as he moves through the rest of the apartment.

"Where are you going? Der-ek! What are you doing?" Leaving the mug on the island, she meets him face to face in the hallway.  
"You weren't lying?" The strange words are accompanied by an even stranger expression.  
"Why would I lie? Its not like its cool to already be through with my 1st husband. Time for number 2!" Her words are sharp but she has no fight left in her body. She can't understand why he's acting so weird.  
"Why?"  
"Why what, Derek?"

He gives her the same look as the time she suggested they get rid of his recliner, or when George and Nora said he had to share the prince. Disbelief, shock, and awe at the stupidity that he's hearing.

She pulls her arms around herself and walks out to the living room, knowing he'd follow her.  
When she sits on the couch, he sits as close to the arm as possible, facing her but placing distance between them.  
"I couldn't offer him the same that he was offering me." She's looking down as she says it, watching as she wrings her finger's together, feeling like a children in trouble.

When Derek doesn't answer for a full minute, she looks up at him. His face is flushed red and the vein in his forehead is pulsing. He notices her looking and makes himself relax.  
"Did he tell you that?" His tone is deep and threatening. His face gives away no emotion, giving her no hints on what's going on in his mind.

"No. It's not like that. He was here until the paper's were finalized. I helped him move his stuff into a friends. I got the apartment, mostly because I think he didn't want it." She looks up through her lashes at him, trying to gauge how much to divulge.

He softens when he sees there's no breakdown on the horizon. He grabs her hand and scoots closer to pull it into his lap. He holds it for a moment between his palms, almost as if he's seeing the size difference, before laying it on his knee, palm up. 

"What happened, Case?" He asks it gently. They sit still for a moment before she relaxes into the back of the couch. She can feel the warmth of him through her shoulder where it grazes his. He draws her attention back to her hand on his knee by running his finger along hers.  
"I just… couldn't pretend that I could do this forever. It was so good and then," he's running his finger's from the crease of her first knuckle up to her wrist, "and then I told him I could never love him half as much as he loved me. I couldn't keep him here knowing I wasn't in it 100%."

It's now his whole hand, warm and slightly rough, running across her hand up to her elbow, just touching her skin so gently it almost tickled. They're quite for a long minute, both tracking Derek's hand as it slows down, barley moving on its way up her wrist. He stops completely for a moment, his finger's circle her wrist and his squeezes gently.

Casey shuts her eyes and just let herself half this one. He's letting her unload all her feelings and he's only made one joke about it. And that was before he knew about the divorce.

Derek's fingers stop moving all together. The rest, matched up evenly with each of her own, soaking in how warm his hand feels on top of hers. When she opens her eyes, she fines he's already been looking, but he doesn’t look ashamed.

Gently, she twists her hand so his fingers fall in between hers and she locks them together. 

"I couldn't stop thinking about this guy." She says it without thinking, currently stuck in whatever worm hole where maybe she can have what she wants.  
His eye brows raise and he glances down at their hands, his skin white with how tightly she's holding him, wishing he'd say anything now.

His eyes are twinkling when he looks back up at her.  
"Yeah?" He says cockily, tongue in cheek. He's given away by the fuchsia cast across his cheeks and down his neck.

She's blushing too and they're eyes keep flicking from one eye to the other until one of them drops to their other's mouth. Then their flicking between their eyes and their lips and Casey's phone rings loud right as she touches her tongue to her bottom lip to wet where it's suddenly gone dry.

In her rush to grab her phone, she bites down on her tongue.

"Hewo?" She's holding her tongue between her finger's as Derek chuckles. She rolls her eyes in retaliation. Not to he outdone, he pulls he back onto the couch, touching from shoulder to keep along one side and grabs her hand again, making a big show of locking their fingers together to make her giggle.

"Casey? Are you okay honey? You haven't answered any of my texts and I tried to call Derek but he didn't answer and you just hung up and I'm sorry I didn't tell you George was there."  
She stares at his profile where his looking at their hands as she thinks about what to say to her mother.  
"I'm okay. Everything's fine but, uh, something came up," she can see Derek's smirk even when he turns away to hid it, "Can I call you later?"

Though she rambled before, Nora was quite stunned about the 180 her daughter had done.  
"Uh yeah, yes. Let me know and I'll make sure it's just you and me." Casey continues on without dealing with her mother's confusion, "Great, love you mom, bye."

"Do you want to watch a movie and eat ice cream to celebrate your divorce?"  
"Der-ek! We are not celebrating! But yes, that sounds lovely." Her voice moves from offended to kind in only the way Derek can make her feel all at once.  
"Ill grab the ice cream and pull up some movies if you get all your best blankets."

Smiling in agreement, they separate.  
Once out of sight, each does a small happy dance before beginning their tasks.

Casey falls asleep against his shoulder, halfway through the second Harry Potter movie in their marathon. He shuffles to grab the remote and turn the volume down and she shuffles closer into him, seeking his warmth. He lays his head on top of her before shutting his eyes, smiling softly at the ceiling.

Casey nuzzles into his collarbone and smiles too, asleep and content.


End file.
